User:Mhare/sandbox3

GA progress

 * 1) It is reasonably well written.
 * a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
 * 1) It is factually accurate and verifiable:
 * a (reference section):  b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR):  d (copyvio and plagiarism):
 * The article uses well known authoritative sources for the matter in question, like ICTY, Human Rights House Foundation, OHR and others. Media used for referencing is well established, and includes The Guardian, Huffington Post, Washington Post and others. On that point I do not have any objections.
 * 1) It is broad in its coverage.
 * a (major aspects): b (focused):
 * Article covers major aspects and is focused.
 * 1) It follows the neutral point of view policy.
 * Fair representation without bias:
 * I didn't find any bias in the article as it follows neutral point of view, as this was much improved in recent edits I have been watching.
 * 1) It is stable.
 * No edit wars, etc.:
 * History shows no edit wars.
 * 1) It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
 * a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
 * Images used in the article follow Wikipedia policies.
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass/Fail:
 * Pass/Fail:

Drive-by comments/suggestion/remarks:

1 From User:Eisfbnore :
 * I'm not gonna hijack this review from Mhare, but I'd like to make some quick, cursory comments.


 * I am not certain that it suits the article to have the blockquote from ICJ displayed in the lede. The lede should be more summarising and authoritative, in WP's own words. It is indeed an important quote, but it should be moved further down IMHO.
 * The section Background is too short and arrives without further ado at its conclusion. There is a whole lot more to be said here. Of course, one needs to draw the line somewhere (I appreciate that this is a conflict with very deep historical roots), but we need a whole lot more here.
 * "Sonja Biserko, president of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia at the time," – at what time?
 * "Sonja Biserko […] draw parallels from other examples of negationist historical revisionism and denialism, such as Armenian and Rwandan genocide denial." – grammar
 * "She noticed that denial, particularly in Serbia, is present most strongly in political discourse, in the media, in the sphere of law, and in the educational system." – 'noted' rather. Also in which of those fields is it most vividly present? I can imagine that there's a hierarchy or economy of attention going on here.
 * We have "culture of denial" twice in this para, both instances for some reason enclosed within scare quotes.
 * "Denial of the Srebrenica genocide takes many forms in Serbia". I don't think the italics and the scare quotes together are compliant with MOS rules. Also, why is this quote so important to highlight? I haven't looked at the source, though I can imagine they have arrived at more provocative/disturbing/curious conclusions in it.
 * The prose is at places too repetitive, resulting in a lack of flow. For instance, we have "It has been alleged/stated/claimed/disputed" in quite close proximity.
 * I don't think the paragraph Readings and presentations is encyclopedic, for a lack of a better word. It looks clumsy with the bullet points and ELs in the prose. You should rather whip up a proper bibliography.

Those are simply some issues I noted upon a brief look at the article. Might return later for a more thorough review, if y'all feel inclined. Eisfbnore (会話) 05:35, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Discussion:

Drive-by comments/suggestion/remarks:

1 From User:Eisfbnore :
 * I'm not gonna hijack this review from Mhare, but I'd like to make some quick, cursory comments.


 * I am not certain that it suits the article to have the blockquote from ICJ displayed in the lede. The lede should be more summarising and authoritative, in WP's own words. It is indeed an important quote, but it should be moved further down IMHO.
 * The section Background is too short and arrives without further ado at its conclusion. There is a whole lot more to be said here. Of course, one needs to draw the line somewhere (I appreciate that this is a conflict with very deep historical roots), but we need a whole lot more here.
 * "Sonja Biserko, president of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia at the time," – at what time?
 * "Sonja Biserko […] draw parallels from other examples of negationist historical revisionism and denialism, such as Armenian and Rwandan genocide denial." – grammar
 * "She noticed that denial, particularly in Serbia, is present most strongly in political discourse, in the media, in the sphere of law, and in the educational system." – 'noted' rather. Also in which of those fields is it most vividly present? I can imagine that there's a hierarchy or economy of attention going on here.
 * We have "culture of denial" twice in this para, both instances for some reason enclosed within scare quotes.
 * "Denial of the Srebrenica genocide takes many forms in Serbia". I don't think the italics and the scare quotes together are compliant with MOS rules. Also, why is this quote so important to highlight? I haven't looked at the source, though I can imagine they have arrived at more provocative/disturbing/curious conclusions in it.
 * The prose is at places too repetitive, resulting in a lack of flow. For instance, we have "It has been alleged/stated/claimed/disputed" in quite close proximity; same with Biserko's time at the org's helm.
 * I don't think the paragraph Readings and presentations is encyclopedic, for a lack of a better word. It looks clumsy with the bullet points and ELs in the prose. You should rather whip up a proper bibliography.

Those are simply some issues I noted upon a brief look at the article. Might return later for a more thorough review, if y'all feel inclined. Eisfbnore (会話) 05:35, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Response by nominator:

We have time, there is no pressure - I would like to make few comments on 's suggestions and remarks. I would go through points in no particular order, one by one.
 * paragraph Readings and presentations - there are some really important websites linked there, which should be emphasized rather than pushed into External links, while being really a presentations and not in form of research papers or books; I have seen similarly formatted subsection where it was obviously perceived as appropriate - maybe if you haven’t opened it, please take your time and visit those links so that you can attest to what kind of presentations these are, and maybe we can leave it as it is or renamed it Bibliography but noting that these are particular presentations.
 * I don't think that italic is necessary for this statement either: "Denial of the Srebrenica genocide takes many forms in Serbia"; but as an emphasized statement without italic it's a descriptive of general view on the problem/topic, but it's also a tamed expression (yes, there are many more statements that could be seen even more disturbing/provocative), which could be important in an environment where writing about these topics often provokes outcry and opposition from editors who do not think the statement(s) or article is neutral; quotations in general are used sometimes in Balkan scope, almost as a symptom of Balkan-editing-warring PTSD, where such quotations are believed to contribute to better sense of credibility than (p)reformulated prose, however, some quotations in this article should remain IMO.
 * I agree that "culture of denial" should be stripped of these scare quotation marks, but shouldn't we emphasis it as a term.
 * Grammar should be fixed - suggestions?
 * I will personally move quotation from lede to more befitting place, say to background (if someone has not already done so).-- ౪ Santa ౪ 99°  22:49, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Also, just few hours ago, Calthinus did some extensive work on grammar and improvement of sentence style through out the piece, and whom I'd like to thank in particular, so maybe some of the expressions are better now.-- ౪ Santa ౪ 99°  23:39, 15 April 2020 (UTC)


 * I appreciate the swift response, Santasa99. I think this a very worthy article on a depressing topic, but it needs a thorough copyedit for many reasons. One is to ensure text-source integrity, so that the article reflects the scholarly consensus on the topic. Another is to weed out remaining balkanisms in the prose&mdash;the article needs to be rewritten in plain English observing English grammatical norms. It also needs a check for close paraphrasing: Earwig's Copyvio Detector reveals an 80 % risk of violation. Most of the identical passages are quotes, I know, but the line needs to be drawn somewhere&mdash;we can't have that many and that long quotations in our article. Eisfbnore  (会話) 05:26, 16 April 2020 (UTC)